157 réponses à ce sujet

[NextArishok]

I'd say they're Lawful Neutral, or perhaps even Lawful Good in a twisted way. The Qunari strive for perfection and maximum efficiency. Yes, they assign people to societal roles without any consideration for personal freedom of choice. Yes, they bind and enslave mages and use them as mere tools of war. Yes, they lobotomize rebels and turn th/m into mindless slaves. But they don't do it out of malice.

 

The Qunari do not say, "You are worthless scum, so you do physical labor like an animal," but rather, "You are strong and sturdy and work tirelessly. You were meant to do physical labor. It is your purpose. This is how you will best serve society." They're not evil; they're just collectivists and believe each person will benefit society best in one certain way.

 

Anaan Esaam Qun!

[Cainhurst Crow]

I wouldn't have a problem with the DnD alignment chart, if it had stayed in DnD. But with everyone trying to shoehorn everything into it, I wish it would just die in a fire already.

 

People and their motivations are more complex than a 3x3 grid can possibly allow.

 

It just provides a easy consulting guide tbh, if not for that I'd have no use for it. It's a nice little summary that sums up a person quite nicely, and while sten would not approve, I kinda do.

[Cainhurst Crow]

That's not very nice

 

But its true, according to the qunari.

[Cainhurst Crow]

Lawful neutral was something I considered as well, however I can't see lawful neutral doing the types of things or holding the types of ideals that the qunari hold. Their streak for invasion or planned conversations, the understandable but still hostile takeover of kirkwall we saw in DA2, the arishock believing in absolutely not helping anyone in kirkwall unless it involved a matter of the quns honor because that was not a demand of the qun, they all serve to flavor the qun in order to push it over from being lawful neutral into lawful evil. There's a sort of maliciousness in it, a natural expansive nature, that makes it more aggressive then how I see lawful neutral being, if that makes any sense.

 

It's not a bad thing by any means though, most of the aristocracies in thedas, if not entire societies, could be considered lawful to neutral and possibly even chaotic evil. There's not a lot of good found in thedas once you get an organized group going it seems, but it is just something odd I noticed from the strangest society of them all.

[PsychoBlonde]

As much as I dislike the qun, I think they are a bit too egalitarian to be considered lawful evil.

 

Unless you fight back.

 

It's kind of a silly question, but they do have all the trappings of lawful evil:

 

1.  Slavery?  Check. EVERYONE under the Qun is required to work and everything they produce is turned over to others for redistribution.  EVERYONE is a slave.

2.  Massive and arcane body of law and ideology full of loopholes?  Check. They have a ginormous book that dictates their entire society.  But at the same time they more or less randomly enforce/don't enforce the restrictions based on practicality.

3.  Despised underclass that is cruelly mistreated on a flimsy justification?  Check.  Mages.

4.  Ends-justify-the-means advancement?  Check.  They use assassins.

5.  Policy of conquest?  Check.  Their stated plan is to conquer all of Thedas.

[PsychoBlonde]

mmm I've been wondering if the Qun is an analogy to any system in our own world...
Fascist?
Communist?
they most definitely are a Theocracy but so is all of thedas...

 

There aren't any theocracies in Thedas except (possibly) Tevinter.  (In a Theocracy the head of state and the head of the church are the same person.)  The Qun could be described as a type of communism or socialism, similar in many ways to Plato's Republic.  In terms of fundamentals there aren't that many really distinct social systems, though.  Isabel Paterson describes only two--the Society of Status and the Society of Contract.  The Qun has no provisions for contractual (chosen) relationships between people, so it's a Status society.  The specific details of their Status don't matter much, the results are pretty much the same overall.

[PsychoBlonde]

I'd say they're Lawful Neutral, or perhaps even Lawful Good in a twisted way. The Qunari strive for perfection and maximum efficiency. Yes, they assign people to societal roles without any consideration for personal freedom of choice. Yes, they bind and enslave mages and use them as mere tools of war. Yes, they lobotomize rebels and turn th/m into mindless slaves. But they don't do it out of malice.

 

The Qunari do not say, "You are worthless scum, so you do physical labor like an animal," but rather, "You are strong and sturdy and work tirelessly. You were meant to do physical labor. It is your purpose. This is how you will best serve society." They're not evil; they're just collectivists and believe each person will benefit society best in one certain way.

 

Placing the concerns of an aggregate non-entity (society) above the concerns of actual entities (individuals) is pretty close to the DEFINITION of evil.  Especially since "concerns", "benefits", etc. are all attributes of individuals.  They are not and cannot be distributed through society--someone is always harmed more, and someone always benefits more.  So all that the "benefit" of "society" accomplishes is to benefit some individuals at the expense of other individuals.

 

So, yes, they are evil.  BECAUSE they are collectivists.  Malice has nothing to do with it.  Read my signature.

[Notshauna]

Yes they are, but the reason why people hesitant to refer to them as such is frankly a failure in naming of the alignment, evil isn't really evil. I feel magic does a better job with their definition of black, which is the DnD Evil color. Evil is very much end justifies the means, Anti-heroes are almost always evil in alignment, but still have beneficial effects on fictional societies.

 

The way I try to explain the difference between extreme members of an alignment and mundane members of an alignment is through the example of a paladin of said alignment. Chaotic Evil Paladins are monstrous people who are completely and utterly brutal and want nothing more to cause suffering, whereas a mundane Chaotic Evil person would burn down a orphanage to distract guards in order to escape and wouldn't really think anything of it. A Paladin of Lawful Evil will be the worst tyrant imaginable and will rule the world with an iron fist, a mundane lawful evil person would lead a society that practices slavery and strict adherence to a code and little to no moralizing beyond that.

[luckycooky25]

The Qun is what ever the leader is. In terms or good/bad neutral

[Jayce]

Lawful Neutral fits, but awkwardly... D&D alignments first and foremost describe an individual's views on order and morality. It's a bit flakey to use it on organizations beyond those whose members all share the same outlook. The Qun is pretty much a dictionary definition of a totalitarian regime. Order is clearly more valued than freedom.

 

Frankly, the philosophy behind the Qun has several disturbing parallels with fascism for my taste, particularly the notion that an individual's right and freedoms are secondary to service of the state, but that's a whole other conversation and one inappropriate for the site..

[Han Shot First]

Lawful Neutral.

 

The Tevinter Imperium would probably be the DA nation closest to the Lawful Evil alignment.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

The rule of the Qun doesn't fit into such a foolish bas morality system. It is discipline and order.

[Magdalena11]

I really don't do alignments, because much of them depends on your point of view, but there are always exceptions.

 

I'd say Qunari society is certainly lawful.  I'll differ on the evil part and say neutral.

Lawful - everyone has a role in society that they don't stray from.  If they stray from the assigned role far enough, they're no longer part of the group - they become Vashoth (or Tal-Vashoth, I guess, let's not do semantics debates.)  The good of the group is held above the wishes of the individual.

 

Evil - not really, at least not unless the chantry is to be considered evil as well.  Slavery by quamek is wrong, but doesn't the chantry enslave its templars with lyrium?  Binding mages with chains and collars is wrong, but is locking them up in a tower to be permitted out only under templar supervision any different?  If the mages are rebellious, their tongues are removed, but at least they're not made tranquil.  Both groups also only trot out their mages as a weapon in times of war.  These restrictions aren't considered evil by the group, since they benefit the group as a whole and make it stronger.  Saying that one group isn't any worse than another may not be a valid argument (I forget the term for the logical fallacy, perhaps et tu?), but it does point out that if it's to be considered evil because of these things, it won't be alone.  As a whole, the group feels that its law provides an overall benefit, so that's good, right?  I'll stick with neutral if anything - this is the part of classification by allignment that I've got problems with.

[Jester]

Unless you fight back.

 

It's kind of a silly question, but they do have all the trappings of lawful evil:

 

1.  Slavery?  Check. EVERYONE under the Qun is required to work and everything they produce is turned over to others for redistribution.  EVERYONE is a slave.

2.  Massive and arcane body of law and ideology full of loopholes?  Check. They have a ginormous book that dictates their entire society.  But at the same time they more or less randomly enforce/don't enforce the restrictions based on practicality.

3.  Despised underclass that is cruelly mistreated on a flimsy justification?  Check.  Mages.

4.  Ends-justify-the-means advancement?  Check.  They use assassins.

5.  Policy of conquest?  Check.  Their stated plan is to conquer all of Thedas.

1. It's not, because followers of the Qun do so voluntarily.

2. They don't. The Qun is very clear about everyone's purpose. The only time that they hesitate, is when they have to enforce something on those outside the Qun.

3. Mistreatment of mages in DA universe is actually based on some pretty strong reasons. Qunari just go one step further than Templars. If Qunari are evil - so are Templars.

4. Just as Thane said in Mass Effect 2 - "Every race uses assassins". 

5. And the Chantry vows to spread the Chant of Light to all four corners of the world. Tevinter Imperium wants to reclaims its power, Dalish wants their widespread country back... In this universe only dwarves seem to not want to spread their influence.

 

The thing about the Qun, is that its followers are not enslaved by it. This is not a system that keeps its members by terror. They want to be a part of something greater. As Arishok said "The weak always seek the strong".

All those following the Qun are dedicated to it - all random Qunari; a Saarebas who prefers to die, than to leave the Qun; Sten; Tallis... You can of course say that they're brainwashed, but that's just a handful excuse for promoting your own viewpoint as objectively supreme.

[Chari]

It's lawful neutral

I doubt there is more lawful neutral philosophy than the Qun

[OctagonalSquare]

Placing the concerns of an aggregate non-entity (society) above the concerns of actual entities (individuals) is pretty close to the DEFINITION of evil.  Especially since "concerns", "benefits", etc. are all attributes of individuals.  They are not and cannot be distributed through society--someone is always harmed more, and someone always benefits more.  So all that the "benefit" of "society" accomplishes is to benefit some individuals at the expense of other individuals.

 

So, yes, they are evil.  BECAUSE they are collectivists.  Malice has nothing to do with it.  Read my signature.

But "evil" is simply a label we like to put on things. It is pretty much entirely subjective. If you want to define evil that way, then the Qunari are evil, but I've never seen it defined like that.

[Navasha]

Either solidly lawful evil or at very best they would be bottom of the barrel lawful neutral (like an ant colony).    No questioning that they fit the lawful category to a 'T'.    Their societies laws clearly are in place to benefit the Qun and only the Qun.   They actively kill or enslave anyone who exists outside of the Qun, which pretty much has the evil part down as well.  

 

It could be argued that they are no more 'evil' than a colony of ants, however.    That it isn't maliciousness that really drives their motivations, simply a complete lack of compassion for anything not them.  

 

Personally, their philosophy is about the most abhorrent society I can imagine so they tend to fall more in the 'evil' camp myself, but I could see the argument that they are just uncaring beasts as well.

[Rawgrim]

Lawful neutral.

[Lee80]

Perhaps I need a refresher on what is considered neutral, but I thought evading countries and enforcing your way of life on them squarely left you off that list.     I'll go look it up to make sure though.  

[Who Knows]

As much as I dislike the qun, I think they are a bit too egalitarian to be considered lawful evil.

The fact that women are barred from certain roles and mages are treated as they are makes them very much not egalitarian.
That is not even their goal to begin with.

[Darkly Tranquil]

The Qun is the very definition of Lawful Neutral. it is dedicated to the pursuit of order at all costs, but is not motivated by selfishness or malice (which would be evil attributes).

[Kidd]

So, yes, they are evil.  BECAUSE they are collectivists.

I'm not going to dive into the thread proper, but I'd like to point out that this part is pretty darn offensive to a lot of people who do not share the same political opinions as you.

[Gervaise]

The whole beauty of the Thedas setting is that you can't simply pigeon hole everyone into set alignments.   In DnD not only is everyone assigned an alignment but you have specific good/neutral/evil gods who promote a certain agenda which their followers adhere too.   In Thedas we have very few acknowledged gods and how they are viewed seems to depend largely on who is doing it; the Chantry would call the old gods false gods and evil, the ancient Tevinter seemed to regard them favourably and no doubt would have regarded them as "good" because their actions/teaching had benefited the Tevinter.   

 

It should also be remembered that very few people regard themselves as evil.   That certain party in Germany that we are not permitted to name regarded themselves as doing good for their country and people, whereas outsiders regarded their actions as evil.    So the Qun regard themselves as good because they are convinced that their way is the best possible one for society and from their point of view, people who abandon or oppose that way of life are evil.     Whilst the majority regard their treatment of mages as barbaric, they do not do so out of malice and actual pity mages for being at greater risk of "losing their self" to demon possession.  

 

So if you must assign an alignment to the Qun, I'd say the Qun themselves would say they were lawful good, whilst everyone not of the Qun would regard them as lawful evil.    They are definitely lawful.

[DuskWanderer]

DnD morality may not apply to them, but they are lawful to a fault and total idiots to boot. The theory that the Qun is simply advanced technologically because they had no Blight crippling their entire society is not lost on me. They literally cannot comprehend that it is individual talent and drive that cause success. The strongest Amazon warrior or male governor simply cannot be. 

 

The amount of Tal-Vashoth underscore this point. We only see soldiers because they're the only ones outside Qunari lands. If someone could land there, they'd probably find a lot of refugees among farmers, thinkers, and what have you. 

 

I really hope we can have them take the brunt of the fighting. The Chantry, Templars, Circle may be corrupt, but at least there are good people there who can work together. I've yet to see a Qunari who isn't a fanatic.